FEATURE: YEMEN IN DEEP CRISIS AS PEACE TALKS FALTER

Suffering is not new to the Yemeni people, who have been coping with crises since chaos started in the country in 2011.

“It is just the toughest time ever. Some days we fast 24 hours, sometimes more. We have never faced such harsh conditions. There is no way to do something over it and, in most cases, there is no one to help us,” said Eman, a 35-year-old mother of five kids, and wife of a mentally-ill husband.

Eman and her nine-member family, lived in a two-room house. Her father and mother-in-law live with them. The father-in-law is very sick, after a fall to the ground. He can’t walk, just lying on the mattress.

“I am the only supporter of my family. My husband is mentally-ill. I don’t work and got so tired of searching for job in such circumstances. I roamed almost the whole of Sanaa to find a job. Every time, I came back empty handed and with frustration,” she said, adding that, neither the government nor the aid agencies have come up to help them.

Since the conflict escalated after Saudi-led military intervention began in Mar, 2015, crises have aggravated with 82 percent of the total 21 million population, are in dire need for basic aid, says the UN.

The UN also said, 19 million people lack access to safe water, 14 million lack access to healthcare and 14.4 million are food insecure. The UNOCHA in Yemen is appealing for funds, as it says they are still very short.

It said that the country now needs 1.8 billion U.S. dollar-worth of humanitarian aid, yet only 19 percent has been given.

Local aid agencies say, they are facing problems, including lack of funds and difficulties of getting into the most affected areas, because of endless warfare.

The UN-backed peace talks, between Yemen’s warring parties, in Kuwait, have so far made no notable progress. Sources in Kuwait reveal that some parties took the talks back to zero stage, every time progress appeared to be close.

Observers argued that the UN is just delaying the announcement of the talks’ failure.

Besides lack of good will from Yemeni factions, the UN is to blame for the failure to make a breakthrough at the peace talks, said Fuad Alsalahi, a political sociology professor, at Sanaa University.

“The talks started and are continuing without initial agreement from all, to what they should talk about. They are in a vicious circle and that is why the process will fail,” Alsalahi said.

Nageeb Ghallab, a politics professor at Sanaa University, said on his Facebook page that, the UN will not be able to make the talks a success, if it fails to deal strictly over references, including UN resolutions that the talks are based on.

“The divisions between the Yemeni factions are still huge, putting the international community before a difficult test. The UN should bridge the gap between the factions first,” Ghallab said.

The talks are being focused on three issues, the military and security and how to end the conflict, releasing prisoners and restoring state facilities, in order to lay the groundwork for a political deal.-

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